Lines and Divides
by DarthGabithaTheHutt
Summary: When Sam leaves for Stanford, everyone has trouble adjusting. Preseries. Completed 23rd October. Please R&R.
1. Chapter 1

When Sam leaves for Stanford, everyone has trouble adjusting. Pre-series.

This story mentions Sara Lucian, a character from two of my other Supernatural stories (Creepy-Ass Orchard of Death and The Louisiana). Reading those stories probably isn't strictly necessary. Sara is a friend (and nothing more) of Dean's who is also a young Hunter. She specalises in exorcisms and was trained by her mother, just as Dean was trained by John. Reviews are hugely appreciated.

xxx

Oklahoma,

August 1st, 2002

It wasn't easy, Dean knew, trying to raise two kids whilst hunting all the things that went bump in the night. After eighteen years, though, John Winchester had the system down perfect.

Holidays were invariably spent in the Impala, shooting from this town to that state and back again. Schooling complicated matters. Although, it didn't have to. For someone who didn't see the point in anything 'normal', John was incredibly determined that his boys would both graduate from High School. Anything else was out of the question, but that much he was set on. The best solution was normally to rent some flat or tiny house for six months, a year tops, and let the boys attend the local school.

It worked well enough. Aside from one or two hairy moment with Social Services and the time Dean's math teacher had been a closet zombie, it had gone fine.

Dean liked the rented flats and homes. Having a decent sized fridge and being able to spread out a bit. Hell, being able to actually unpack was always nice for a change. At twenty-two, he was really too old to be living at home, but when home moved around so much, who cared? This home, though, was the last. Sam had graduated almost a month ago, but the lease didn't expire for another three weeks. No point leaving with the rent already paid and all, but there would be no more semi-permanent homes. No reason for them.

And Dean was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He knew John's plans for Sam. Hunt, train, hunt, train, train some more, kill something big and nasty, avenge their mother. Identical to the plans for Dean, which Dean was following pretty much to the letter, just with a lot more booze and loud music than his father had anticipated. Sam knew about these plans as well. In the same way that other families discussed colleges, the Winchesters debated firearms.

Or they used to. None of them mentioned the future anymore, because they all know that _something_ had to go wrong.

But despite all that, Dean was sitting calmly at the kitchen table with his father and a fistful of eye-witness reports when he heard something crunching up the gravel outside their lonely, isolated little house. A mechanical something, not the demonic kind. Just to be clear.

Dean stuck his head out of the front door. "Oh, you didn't."

His best – and only – friend grinned back at him. Sara Lucian was an exorcist, twenty years old and just a few inches over five feet in height. And sitting on a fricking _motorbike. _

"I talked Mum round," she said. "What do you think?"

"Amelia agreed to you having a motorbike?" Dean said, somewhat surprised. He'd known about Sara's love of motorbikes for years, but her mother had never let her drive anything but a Toyota.

"More or less. She said if I killed myself, she'd bind my spirit in a toothbrush."

"Nice."

Sara shrugged. "That's Lucians for you."

"What are you doing here?"

"Your dad in?"

"Kitchen. Mind if I..." Dean said, gesturing at the bike.

"Knock yourself out," Sara said, picking up her rucksack and heading into the house. She'd been there once or twice before and made a point of banging on Sam's bedroom door as she passed it. "Female in the house!" Turned out an entirely male-dominated household didn't always have the best idea of 'modesty', as she'd discovered much to her – and Sam's – embarrassment the last time she was here.

John looked up at she entered the kitchen. "Morning, Sara."

"Morning. Got the books you wanted from Pastor Jim," she said, fishing three small volumes of out her bag. "And I have a favour to ask."

"Amelia needs back-up?" John asked, taking the books and checking them over.

"No. But her spider sense is tingling. She thinks a possession is going to pop up somewhere around here, and soon. Mind if I crash on your sofa for a day or so until she's proved to be right?"

"Your mother's still worrying about you?"

"Safest place for miles," Sara said. "If it's a problem-"

"You know anything about a two-thousand year old curse on a piece of land in Arkansas?"

Sara smiled. Heaven forbid John should actually tell her she was welcome to stay. "Arkansas?" she said, sitting down. "Rings a bell."

Sam entered the kitchen, running a hand through his mussed hair. "Oh, hey, Sara," he said.

"Hey, Sasquatch," Sara replied.

"When are you going to stop calling him that?" John asked idly, suddenly beginning to tidy up the case notes.

"When his feet shrink."

Sam managed a faint smile. "You just love it that I'm taller than Dean, don't you?"

"Maybe a little bit."

"Traitor," Dean said, coming in. "That is one nice bike. Who'd you steal it from?"

"Twenty-first birthday present," Sara said primly. "Thank the Lord for the Lucian fortune. Oh, uh," she scrabbled for her bag and pulled out another book, tossing it at Sam. "Congrats on surviving high school."

"Thanks," Sam said, and looked at the title. "Christ, the_ Codex?" _

"It was that or _Lord of the Rings,"_ Sara said. "Some useful protection stuff in there, Sasquatch. Might come in handy."

John slipped out of the kitchen just as Dean vehemently banned any sort of high-brow discussion. He paused outside the small room, listening for a moment.

"You guys don't have any tea, do you?"

"Get thee behind me, Satan," the boys said in unison.

Shaking his head, John moved off.

xxx

It wasn't like Sam had ever asked to be different. Well, not if you took 'normal' as the usual definition. He wanted nothing more than a real life, not hunt after hunt, fighting for a woman he couldn't even remember.

Sam sat by his bed, moonlight coming through the curtain-less window for him to see by. Once again, he slipped the envelope from beneath his mattress and extracted the letter. He couldn't quite make out the words, but he knew them anyway.

_Mr Winchester, _

_We are pleased to inform you... _

Sam knew he had a problem seeing the consequences of his actions. It had started out innocently enough. He'd wanted to take the SATs seriously, just like he'd taken all of his schoolwork seriously since preschool. And he'd gone to talk to the guidance counsellor because _not _going would cause too much hassle.

_Well, I haven't much thought about college, _he'd practised in his head. _Thought I'd take a year off, get my head together, figure out what I want to do with my life. _

And the counsellor had smashed right through that plan when she'd started mentioning Ivy League, dropping names all over the place.

_But... my family, we can't afford- _

And he'd meant, _we can't afford to do that, _in a complete different way to the one she'd assumed as she easily started passing over forms about scholarships applications.

A nice woman, who Sam had never even spoken to before, neatly demolished all his plans to ignore college because it was _never _going to happen just like that. And Sam was halfway through planning the next set of objections, or even just tossing the forms out the window, when he suddenly realised...

He wanted this. He wanted to go to college, he wanted to learn and maybe become a lawyer and stop killing things. Simple as that.

So he filled out form after form, and studied like crazy, and filled out _more _forms and sent them off and this was the result. He was in. Full ride to Stanford, pre-law.

And it was going to ruin _everything. _

Sam wasn't an idiot. He had the proof in his hand, but he knew more than facts and figures. He knew Dad was going to be furious. Dean would be hurt. Shouting would be a given. Harsh words, just like every other fortnight for the last six years, when Sam hit puberty with a vengeance and fell out of love with his freakish life. But this was more than just wanting normal.

This time, normal was in his grasp. All he had to do was take it.

And damn his family.

When the front door slammed, Sam jumped guiltily and stuffed the letter away again. Dean and Sara had gone to the one and only local bar. They, well, Sara had invited him along as well, but Sam knew that Sara was very likely the only friend Dean had and he wasn't about to get in the way. His door was open just a crack and he could hear the two of them in the kitchen.

"I can't believe you did that, Dean!" Sara said, being careful to keep her voice low.

"The guy was jackass," Dean replied, completely unrepentant. "What's the problem?"

"The problem is I needed a good screw more than a knight in tarnished armour."

Sam grinned as he heard Dean splutter.

"Good grief, Dean, you would've thought the whole thing with Caleb would've shown you-"

"Please, for the love of all that is holy, can you change the subject?"

Sara's laugh drifted through the door, happy and uncomplicated. "Aw, is Dean getting embarrassed?"

"Does your mother know you're like this?"

"A slut? Probably not. No longer a virgin? Definitely."

"Tell me she didn't give you 'the talk'."

"Hell, no. She never suspected me and Caleb were doing anything more than debating shotguns."

"So how?"

"Well, I think she figured it out about the time I started using the bottled virgin's saliva for spells rather than just spitting in the bowl."

They both laughed that time and Sam felt some knots in chest relax. There were plenty of others, but he had some comfort knowing that Dean had someone other than their dad. Maybe he could do this.

Maybe.

xxx

The next morning, Sara was gone. Not missing-gone, gone-to-kill-a-demon kinda gone, with the note on the kitchen table to prove it.

Dean was sitting on the work-surface, almost inhaling a cup of coffee, when Sam walked in. "Dad wants us to go with him today," he said by way of greeting. "New creature feature a coupla hours away."

"Any idea what?" Sam asked. Arguing about it seemed like way too much hassle.

"No," John said, coming in from the front door. "But it sounds nasty. Sam, can I see the _Codex _Sara gave you?"

"Sure. It's in my room," Sam answered, mind fixed on coffee and breakfast. There should be some Lucky Charms left, shouldn't there?

There wasn't, as it turned out, but there was plenty of coffee and that was almost good enough. Sam was on his third cup when his father walked slowly back into the kitchen and he nearly dropped it when he saw what John had in his hand. Not the _Codex._ The letter.

"Dad-"

"What the hell is this?" John asked, voice soft, _dangerous. _

"I- I-"

"Dad, what's going on?" Dean said, eyes flicking from one to the other.

"Look for yourself," John replied and threw the letter to his son.

It fell to the floor and Dean slid off the work-surface to retrieve it. "Stanford?" he said, staring at the letter. "A full ride?"

And Sam's mind, his fast-working, too damn smart mind, was stuck, unable to think of anything to do or say to defuse this situation. He thought he'd have more time, time to talk his father around and warn Dean and talk about it with someone, and plan, and-

"Well?" John demanded, snatching the letter back from Dean. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"I just... I wanted to see if I could do it," Sam managed to say and it wasn't the whole truth, not even close, but it was somewhere to start off.

"Well, you did it. Ready to get on with something worthwhile now?"

God, he hated that tone in his dad's voice. The one that let him know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that no matter what he did, he'd never be good enough.

"Well?" John said again.

Is this how he wanted to life his whole life? Hating his father more and more, hating his life, having nothing good to focus on? Never being good enough?

"No."

"Excuse me?"

Dean was shaking his head frantically at his brother, wordlessly begging him not to do this. It hadn't been a cease-fire between Sam and John, it had been the quiet before an earthquake.

And Sam had learnt to hide his fear from his father at age nine, so doing it at eighteen wasn't so bad. "I want to go."

"You want to what?"

"I want to go to Stanford," he repeated, ignoring the stab of pain somewhere inside him. This wasn't going to end well. For all his plans of maybe hunting in holidays, long distance research, it was never going to end well. "I don't want this life."

"You have a responsibility-"

"To what? To your insane quest? I want more than that!"

"What about your mother?"

"What about her? She's dead, Dad, and nothing's gonna change that. Not even getting yourself and us killed just to make yourself feel better!"

John nodded slowly, face impassive. "Fine. Go after your perfect life. But you do it without us, understood?"

Sam nearly flinched. "What?"

"Either stay here and do your duty, or go and stay gone. I mean it, Sam. You walk out that door, never come back."

For a moment, Sam wavered. This was _home, _however shitty it was. It was all he knew. He looked to Dean, to his big brother who had always stepped into the argument before it got this bad. Not this time, though.

He swallowed. "Fine."

John crumbled the letter in his hands, dropped it on the floor and walked out, slamming the front door behind him so hard that the whole thin wall shook.

"Well, that went well," Sam said to his feet.

When Dean took a step forward, Sam turned and fled into his room. A lifetime on the road made packing second-nature. He could be ready to go in half an hour, maybe a little more. Unlike certain brothers, Sam kept his clothes neatly folded so it was easy to stuff them all in the duffel he yanked out from under the bed. Some books were grabbed from the window sill, including the _Codex, _and tossed on top of the clothes. A few framed photos, a baseball that had once been Dean's, a stuffed bear small enough to sit in his hand with hardly any fur left.

"You know," Dean said from the doorway, just as Sam was doing a final check under his bed and in drawers. "Dad'll be so pissed when he gets back, he won't know whether you're here or not. By the morning, he'll have calmed down."

"Great," Sam replied, pulling open the drawer of his bedside table. Knife, holy water, rosary... "Then what? Repeat that argument a few dozen times until he shoots me?" He shut the drawer again, leaving all of the hunting stuff where it was. "I don't think so, Dean. He'll never back down over this."

"And neither will you, right?" Dean snapped, managing to sound pissed off. Which, Sam thought, he had every right to be. "Geez, Sammy, ever heard of compromise?"

"Compromise? In this family?" Sam snorted, because it was that or start crying. "Here, it's all or nothing. And I just figured something out." He hooked the backpack over his shoulders, grabbed the duffel and gave Dean a faint, fake smile. "Revenge is all. We're nothing."

"That what you really think?"

"Looks like," and Sam slipped past the shocked Dean.

It said a lot about Dean's state of mind that he didn't even try to grab Sam as he passed. All his life, Dean had anchored Sam, kept him close even when Sam wanted nothing to do with him. But this... It wasn't just that the rules had suddenly changed. All of a sudden, no one was playing any more. Sam was leaving. Walking out of his life, in search of something better, something normal.

He was about three miles away before he started to cry.

xxx

The exorcism had gone smoother than any other Sara had ever done. Her mother's mystical tracking system led her to the possessed host before the demon even had time to get comfy and prying it out into the ether and slamming it back into hell was satisfyingly easy. After a year of solo exorcisms, Sara was starting to settle into the routine, adapt to the fallout, although the feeling of a job well done was still sour.

So when she parked her shiny new bike outside the Winchesters' home, next to John's truck, she was in a pretty good mood. Needless to say, it didn't last.

It wasn't that late, only eleven pm or so, and Sara was hoping Dean might not object to a celebratory drink or two. The fallout had only lasted a day and a half, with another half day spent on the road, and all evidence of what she had done was gone. She wanted to feel human again and spending time with her best friend seemed a good way to go for that.

But the house was dark, apparently empty. Sara frowned; they weren't meant to have moved on yet. Dean had told her to come back here once she was done.

There was no such thing as paranoia in the hunting world, so Sara pulled out her revolver before trying the front door. Unlocked. Not a good sign. Sara slipped through it and into the house, trying to avoid the several creaky floorboards. The door to Sam's room was ajar and the room itself looked like it had been ransacked. _Really _not a good sign.

She moved into the kitchen, eyes flicking from one patch of deep shadow to the next. No glowing eyes stared back and nothing jumped out at her. Her foot nudged a crumpled piece of paper and after one last look round, Sara knelt and quickly scooped it up, smoothing it out awkwardly, one handed.

Sara never heard someone sneaking up on her, but as it was John Winchester doing the sneaking, that wasn't too surprising. After a momentary scuffle, John realised who it was and released her.

"Mr Winchester, what's going on?" Sara asked, rubbing a sore arm. "What happened to Sam's room?"

He turned away without answering. She could smell alcohol, but he didn't seem drunk. More hung-over, to be honest.

Sara blinked, confused. He'd never ignored her before. Dodged questions, yes, refused to answer, definitely, but never simply ignored her completely. She looked back to the letter still in her hand.

"Stanford?" she said. "Sasquatch got into Stanford?"

And then she saw the look on John's face.

"What did you do?" Sara demanded. "What the hell did you do?"

"That doesn't matter," John replied fiercely. "Sam chose that-" He gestured to the letter. "Over his own family. That's all that matters."

"You threw him out." Not a question, a simple statement. "For God's sake-"

John gave her a harsh shove, slamming her against the kitchen table. A cup of stone-cold coffee fell off the edge, shattering on the floor.

"God has _nothing _to do with it!" he roared.

Sara couldn't help it; she shrank back. "You're right," she said quietly. "This is all on you. Where's Dean?"

"At that bar."

She left without another word. The Impala wasn't outside the house, but it would only take thirty minutes or so to walk to the bar, so she left her bike where it was, draping her leather jacket and helmet over it. Even in the hot August night, she shivered in her tank top and knew it had nothing to do with the temperature.

Sara had always known that the Winchester family had their issues. They were Hunters, after all, and every Hunter was at least a little twisted. Some could be used as a corkscrew. But the Winchesters... They were different. Quite a few Hunters learnt from their fathers, but Sara knew of only one Hunter who had raised his own children in this world: John Winchester. Few Hunters even had families these days, let alone kept them by their side. And the Winchesters had just proved that it didn't really work.

She didn't know when Sam had started to reject his life and his family's work. Long before she had met Sam or Dean, for certain. But for whatever reason, Sam had wanted out. And now he had gone. Left or been driven out, it made no difference. Sam was _gone. _And that meant Dean was in serious trouble. He'd based his entire life around his little brother. Sara wasn't nearly bigheaded enough to believe that their friendship of three or four years could even begin to compensate for the loss of eighteen years of brotherhood.

But she had to try.

By the time she reached the bar, Sara no longer cared why Sam had left, or what John had said. Neither of them would ever back down, she knew that much, and so all was left was to help Dean. Somehow.

The bar was very familiar to Sara. It was the same one she'd visited with Dean only three days earlier, the one she'd been planning to return to in order to celebrate a successful exorcism. Now, though, there was nothing to celebrate.

A quick glance around didn't reveal Dean, so Sara made her way to the bar and managed to catch the barman's attention.

"Back again, huh?" he asked, recognising her.

"I'm looking for my friend. The guy I was here with last time?" she called over the music.

His smile faded and he pointed to a table near the back of the bar. Sara allowed herself one quick glance at her friend and turned back.

"How long has he been here?"

"Since we opened. Was here last night as well, opening 'till closing."

Sara winced. That was far too many hours of drinking. "Can I settle up for him?"

With Dean's impressive tab paid off, she thanked the barman and headed for Dean's table. A handful of beer bottles and shot glasses littered the stained surface.

"Hey, Dean," she said, slipping into the empty chair. "Trying out a liquid diet?"

She'd have to tread carefully. John just got excessively maudlin and gloomy when drunk, using tequila to revisit happier memories, but Dean, on the one and only occasion Sara had seen him drunk before this, had started a fight that took three hours and five policemen to halt. Good times.

Dean looked up at her, frowning slightly. "Sara?" he nearly slurred. "Thought you were working."

"I was. That's all taken care of," she replied easily. "You wanna get out of here?"

Waiting for an answer could take hours, so Sara just stood up and heaved Dean up. He was more or less able to walk – although straight lines were now something that happened to other people – so it was possible for Sara to manoeuvre him out of the bar again. If she didn't get him back to the house before he passed out, she was buggered. There was just no feasible way for a five-foot-three girl to manhandle a six-foot-one unconscious Dean anywhere.

Propping her friend against his car, Sara rummaged through Dean's pockets, ignoring the swipe at her head, until she found the keys to the Impala.

"What the hell were you gonna do, Dean, sleep in a ditch?" she asked, opening the passenger door and shoving him in.

"Doesn't matter."

"Does to me," she retorted.

"Yeah, but for how long?"

"Shut it, Dean," Sara said firmly. That was not going to lead anywhere she wanted to go.

"You give so much... you sacrifice so much, and for what?"

Sara wished Dean was talking about Hunting. She knew all the arguments for continuing to hunt, had used most of them on her own mother had some point or another. But this time he was talking about something else, something bigger, and Sara didn't have any answers for him. Hell, she wasn't even sure of the question.

"I liked you more when you were hitting things," she said finally.

"He just left. Just walked out on us." _On me, _was the unspoken thought and Sara hated it that Dean couldn't manage to voice that.

Belatedly, she started the engine. This wasn't something she was sure she could fix, but if she was going to hold Dean together, she would've preferred him to be sober and taciturn, not drunk and talkative. She was good with sober and taciturn.

"Aren't you gonna to tell me that it'll all be ok?" Dean asked as she pulled out of the parking lot.

"Would that help?"

"No. No, it wouldn't."

xxx

Part Two should be up by the 25th. Reviews are loved...


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks for all the reviews for part one!

xxx

If John objected to Sara's presence the next morning, he didn't say anything, just gave her the evil eye before disappearing into the bathroom. She, for her part, ignored him as she brewed coffee strong enough to wake the dead. Or at least help Dean with what had to be one hell of a hangover.

When Sara had placed her offering by a still-unconscious Dean, she sat at the kitchen table, her backpack slung over the back of her chair, and spread a small map of the United States over the table. There were red and blue crosses covering each of the states. Blue was for a successful exorcism, red for a demon still at large. There weren't many reds. The map was nothing more than a simplistic overview of the work that Sara and her mother had done over the past decade. At the Lucian home in Wisconsin, there were wall-sized maps devoted to possessions, demons, spirits. Such things were generally random, but if any pattern ever appeared, the idea was for it to be spotted sooner rather than later.

Sara found a blue pen and added another cross to the outline shape of Arkansas. Just a single glance at the map could tell you that no specific state was being targeted, but for some reason, America was now the centre of the war with the supernatural. More ghosts, demons, disappearances, possessions. That was, after all, the reason that the British-born Amelia Lucian had arrived in America in the first place. Until the pattern emerged, if it ever did, Sara was happy just to keep on the way she was going. One messy exorcism at a time.

"How's Dean?" John asked as he re-entered the kitchen, hair still damp.

She very carefully didn't look up. "Hung-over."

"I know that, Sara. I meant-"

"I know what you meant, but if I answer that question, you'll hit me again."

"You don't agree with what I did."

"I think you could have handled the situation a lot better. But then again, so could a poorly-trained _monkey!_"

John grabbed her arm as she tried to leave. "You know as well as I do, if Sam had stayed in this world, he would've died. If you're not one hundred percent committed to hunting, you become the prey."

"So you just benched your youngest son permanently?" Sara yanked herself free. "No, I don't buy that. I've been played by my own family and even though you're more manipulative than my gran ever was, I don't think this was some elaborate scheme to get Sam out of the game. If all else failed, you could've just let him go to college like he wanted, or, hell, even encouraged him. Your son wanted more than you could give and you got all hurt. So you threw him out. And here's the rub, _sir. _You made Dean look after Sam since practically before he can remember. Because it suited you. And now you've thrown Sam out. Because it suited you. So what the hell is Dean meant to do now, huh? He's done everything you ever asked of him and you just made him give up his little brother, who you ordered him to protect. What the hell kinda father are you?"

John shook his head. "What happened to the shy little girl who used to believe everything I told her?"

"She grew up. I'd advise you to do the same." Sara retrieved a folder from the table and held it out to John. The curses in Arkansas. "Go on," she said when he didn't move. "You've always chosen the job over your boys. Aside from the whole plural-to-singular thing, what's changed?"

He snatched the folder from her. "You're hardly in a position to criticise parents."

Sara smiled in a way that reminded John far too much of Dean's ironic, yeah-the-universe-sucks-but-what-can-I-do smile. "Maybe not."

John was at the kitchen door before Sara spoke again.

"But you wanna know something kinda funny? Mum once told me that you reminded her of her own father. And I've never felt more sorry for her."

She didn't get a reply, but then, she hadn't honestly expected one. With a sigh, Sara settled herself once more at the kitchen table, listening to the sounds of John preparing for another hunt.

She was still sitting there three hours later when Dean finally emerged from his room. He was halfway to the bathroom before he registered her presence and turned back with a frown, before clearly deciding that questions could wait and continuing on his stagger-y way. Sara, who was just honestly glad that Dean had managed to heave himself out of bed, didn't take it personally and had more coffee brewing when Dean re-entered the kitchen, shirtless and hair dripping wet.

"Didn't you leave?" he asked, making a beeline for the caffeine.

"Yeah. Came back. You asked me to."

"Where's Dad?"

"Arkansas, I think. Something about cursed land."

Dean nodded slowly and sat down opposite her.

"So how many time am I gonna have to haul your inebriated ass out of that bar? Ballpark figure."

"You judging me now?"

"Just asking. You're kinda heavy, you might not have realised, so if it's going to be a regular thing, I'd better start weight training with a vengeance."

"Like you ever stopped."

Sara shrugged. There were certain difficulties in being a five-foot three female, including the need for an obscene amount of strength training, and she accepted that. "Well, it might be for the best, then. Training should be useful, right?"

"Sara..."

She waited, still looking straight at Dean.

"Do you think it's possible to live in both worlds?"

"No, I don't. Trying to limit the effect hunting has on your life is like trying to hold back the Nile with a teaspoon."

"But you managed it. At school, right?"

"Kind of. I didn't exactly fit and I was hanging onto the real world so hard, there wasn't much room for anything else. But I'm not Sam, Dean. I wasn't trying to get away from hunting. I was trying to back to who I wanted to be."

"And Sam wants to be Joe College rather than the Terminator."

"Books, studying, research. Real life, independence. Might be good for him."

"It's not safe."

"And sleazy motels are for a guy who can be described as 'pretty'?"

"Sam can deal with sick humans."

"Because you taught him to, right? Last time I checked, you also taught him how to safeguard against the boogieman."

Dean looked at her carefully. "Almost sounds like you agree with what he did."

"I'm hardly the poster child for respecting parents' wishes, now, am I?" Sara said. "The only difference between me and your brother is that I wanted in and he wanted out. I can't condemn him for that." _But I can and I do condemn him for dumping you like this._ Sara knew better than to say that, though. Being the only female in Dean's little group didn't give her the right to initiate chick-flick moments or insult Sam.

"Do you ever want out?"

Okay, that was one question that she would never have expected Dean to ask her. Sara shrugged helplessly. "Pastor Jim always says that you can doubt occasionally and still believe."

"Was that a yes?"

"What we do is important. Might not always be nice, but it's necessary." Taking a slight risk, Sara answered the question she thought Dean wanted to ask. "I'm not quitting anytime soon, that's for sure. Can't possibly make my mum that happy."

Dean managed a small smile. "Can you imagine Sammy as a lawyer?"

"Hm, good at arguing, stubborn, way too fond of books thicker than his head..." Sara nodded. "Sounds about right, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, it does." He pushed himself up from the table, running one hand through his damp hair. "Sorry to deprive you of the view of my chest, but I'm freezing."

Sara gave him the finger, recognising the joke as Dean-speak for _let's back off before one of us starts sharing, _and even feeling a little grateful for the break. Sara could barely manage her own emotions and Dean's habit of bottling everything up, while unhealthy, was similar to her own. They understood each other fairly well, knew when to force a topic out into the open and when to dance around it to get the right answers without having to ask the relevant questions.

When her phone beeped softly, Sara pulled it out of her bag and walked out of the house. Sitting on the Impala's hood, she held the phone against her ear.

"Hey, Mum."

"Sara?" Amelia said, as if anyone else would be answering her daughter's mobile. "How did the exorcism go?"

"Fine. That new system of yours is working well. I got to the host within twelve hours."

"What kind of demon was it?"

"Level four. Slice and dice."

"I wish you wouldn't use slang like that."

Sara rolled her eyes. There was no point in trying to classify the demons by race or tribe or whatever, so instead they were rated by the strength of the demon and their intentions. Level four was about average, _slice and dice _meant, well, that all the demon wanted to do was kill people randomly and horribly.

"Sorry," she said anyway. "But, seriously, Mum, you need to teach me how to find the demons like you do. This was almost too simple."

"Well, for a level four, what do you expect? Use this method with anything above a level six and you'll be lucky to be pointed to the right _county_."

"I know, I know."

"Well, I need you to head to Pastor Jim's to ask about the supply lines and check up on that coven in Minnesota, so-"

"Mum, I, uh, I sort of need to stay here for another few days."

"Bad fallout?" And no, there wasn't a single trace of sympathy in Amelia's voice. She knew just as well as Sara did that the fallout for a level four exorcism was minimal.

"Not exactly. I need to help Dean."

"There are other Hunters who can help him, Sara."

"Not that kind of help, Mum. Sam left."

"What?"

"He's left the family, the job, all of it. He's gone to Stanford."

"Good. Best place for him. What does it have to do with you?"

"What does- Dean's _brother _just walked out on him. Dean is my friend. Do I really need to spell it out for you?"

"Don't take that tone with me, Sara. Dean can look after himself and you have a job to do."

Sara took a deep breath, perfectly ready and willing to let lose with a complete diatribe, when the phone was gently tugged from her hand.

"She's on her way," Dean said firmly and hung up with the press of a button.

"Dean-"

"Don't," he said, tossing the phone back to her and dropping her bag and helmet by her feet. "I don't need any more arguments, ok?"

"What about a friend?"

"Doesn't matter which side of the country you're on, freak."

"Same might go for brothers."

For a moment, Dean didn't react and Sara felt certain that she'd overstepped her bounds – self imposed bounds, but bounds nonetheless.

"Call if you need anything," he said finally, but with a faint smile.

"You too."

With a final smile, Sara pulled on the helmet and started up her motorbike, roaring away from the house and heading north.

xxx

Stanford University, Palo Alto

September 1st 2002

It was a damn good thing that Stanford let students move in way before term started, or Sam would've been completely buggered. His plans involving school had involved some savings, but he hadn't counted on having to make his way over half of America all on his own. He certainly didn't have enough to pay for room and board left when he finally got to Stanford.

But this was better, really. Getting to school a few weeks early meant he got the best pick of the student jobs, had a chance to learn his way around and avoided all the awkward questions about why he turned up with only a few bags of clothes and personal stuff and no relatives to see him settled in. While hiding his intentions from his family Sam hadn't exactly had many opportunities to do the recommended reading either, so spending a few quiet weeks hiding in the library could only be a good thing.

The scholarship paid for tuition, accommodation and meals in the main dining room, but nothing else. Getting his hands on all the necessary textbooks had been Sam's biggest worry – for some reason, textbooks always cost way more than was fair to the average student. Fortunately for his finances, there was a second-hand bookstore right next to his hall of residence, complete with abandoned textbooks and an owner sympathetic to a student strapped for cash. In exchange for his weekends for the entire term, Sam had managed to get everything he needed.

Juggling the last of his books, Sam managed to elbow open the main door to his new home. Empty notice boards and pigeonholes lined the walls, all waiting for the arrival of the other students and the new term. His room – a single, thank the Lord – was on the third floor, on a corridor otherwise completely deserted, but that would all change in a few days.

The room itself was just as empty as the rest of the building. Aside from the books littering the shelves and a few token pictures pinned to the wall above his desk, there was almost no indication that anyone had moved in at all, let alone been there for over a fortnight.

But something had changed. Despite all his desire to be normal, Sam couldn't completely repress a lifetime's worth of instincts, and he knew someone had been in his room. Whoever it had been, they were gone. Places to hide in this room were limited to the wardrobe, and that was hanging open, the door refusing to stay close due to dodgy hinges. Even under the bed wasn't an option, four drawers taking up the normal hiding space.

Sam had been expecting someone or something to turn up for a while now. Surely he couldn't just walk out of his life- his old life just like that. His dad or his brother, or some demon or other, something was going to come and ruin his chance for normality. But there was nothing to indicate the kind of chaos he was dreading, just the faint smell of... sage?

The irrational anger faded as he checked the window sill, the doorframe, even the bed-frame. Small sigils and glyphs had been scratched into the wood and he could smell the anointing oil that had been used. Signs of protection, signs to ward off evil, banish spirits. He put up some wards when he arrived, because this new life was no good if he wasn't alive to live it, but these were far stronger.

"Sara," he muttered. The sage was the greatest give-away. That herb was the Lucians' failsafe, the one they always used.

The wards, although powerful, weren't quite finished to Sam's eye. Magic was all about repetition, as Sara put it, so she'd be back at least once to re-draw the symbols, to strengthen them.

Sam was a great lover of routine, even creating a simple one to keep him occupied at Stanford until lessons started. Sara no doubt knew that routine, just as any hunter studied its prey.

What did you do when you were being hunted? You changed the routine.

xxx

The next day, just like every day before, Sam left his hall of residence reasonably early and turned towards the library, book-bag slung carelessly over one shoulder. Same path, same pace, until he reached the main doors of the library and disappeared inside. The Law books were further in, centre of the second level, but Sam stayed in Foreign Literature, next to a window. It was a direct route between the library and his accommodation and from the window he could see the door he went in and out of several times a day.

Maybe ninety minutes later, he saw a familiar red-headed figure walk right past the front door and down the side of the building. Sam knew there was a fire-escape which led to his corridor, but he'd be hard pushed to reach the ladder. Sara Lucian was a full foot shorter than him. She'd have to stand on a box or something. Mentally working out when she'd be in the corridor, Sam waited another two minutes before hurrying out of the library. His room didn't overlook the path to the library, so if he moved quickly, he could easily get into the building without Sara being any the wiser.

At least, that was the plan.

When he unceremoniously shoved his door open, Sara was sitting on the bed, one hand tapping out a beat on the wooden bed frame.

"Took you long enough," she said, smiling.

"Shouldn't you be-"

"Finished the wards yesterday, Sasquatch. Burning sage is the last step, remember."

He managed a rueful grin. "So why did you come back?"

"Well, you know, I'm gonna have to come back in a few months to renew them anyway, not to mention when you move rooms and stuff, so I figure if you have any problem with this, now would be the time to get it out of your system."

"Did Dean send you?"

"He asked me, yeah. So, any issues with the decorations?"

Sam shook his head. "But nothing else. No watching me, or-"

"Oh, don't flatter yourself. I've got better things to do than baby-sit. I'm here because Dean asked me to do this, but anything else is between you and your fucked-up family." But it was said with mild affection. "You know, you should get some posters or something. Kinda bare in here."

"I don't mind."

"Other people will. Fitting in is easy, but you have to make a little effort here and there. Live up to stereotypes and expectations."

"How do you know?"

"Dean never told you?" Sara asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "Mum left me at a boarding school in England. She didn't want me involved in her work. Seven years of trying to be normal."

"But you went back to hunting?"

"Yeah, well, people always want what they shouldn't have." Sara hopped off his bed. "Look, you can't ignore what's really going on. And that's just a fact, okay? You're too old, you're too involved. Sooner or later, you're going to have to choose between normality and peoples' lives. And you'll hate yourself for it. So I'm going to do you one favour, okay? You hear about anything weird, tell me. I'll pass the info onto your family, claim Mum spotted it or something, or I'll deal with it myself."

"Thanks."

Sara nodded, headed for the door but stopped before she went through it. "Nearly forgot." She pulled a lumpy package out of her backpack and chucked it at Sam, who caught it easily. "Don't get too complacent, alright?"

"Sara?" Sam said quickly. "Look after Dean, would you?"

"Why'd you do it, Sasquatch?" she asked in reply, turning to face him again. "Why'd you leave him like that?"

"It's better this way."

"For who?"

"Look, Dad was never going to let me do this. Never, no matter what compromises I might have been willing to make. And Dean's been stuck in the middle of our arguments for way too long and I wasn't going to make him choose between me and Dad."

"So you just made the choice for him? What a saint."

"Well, what would you have done?"

"Doesn't matter. What matters is what you did. You didn't prevent Dean from making a choice that sucked. What you did is that you didn't choose him. Dean's the job and you just threw everything he believes in back in his face."

"If you hate me so much, why are you trying to keep me alive?"

Sara shook her head tiredly. "If you don't get it, I'm not going to explain, Sasquatch. I'll swing by in three months or so to renew the spells. Don't worry, I'll be subtle about it."

Sam half-heartedly considered calling her back, but decided against it. Instead, he sat on his small bed and opened the package she'd thrown him. A small bundle he recognised as a charm bag, mainly due to the stick of herbs, fell out on to his lap. A bottle of chrism oil followed. Then a knife, and Sam stopped for a moment, stomach churning. Curved blade, pointed handle just longer than a hand-span. The same knife he'd given Dean for his eighteenth birthday, almost five years ago. The gift had been a compromise: while the weapon was fundamentally a practical present, it was also unique enough to be more than that. Dean had loved it.

It wasn't until he saw the last item that Sam relaxed slightly. A paperback copy of Cicero's passionate speeches in murder trials, in the original Latin, with a small coloured square tucked between the pages. Fingers trembling slightly, he gently pulled it out. A Polaroid, old and slightly faded. A young Sam smiled out at his older counterpart, one arm wrapped around an equally younger Dean. Sam couldn't even remember when the picture had been taken, but from the difference in appearance and the honest happiness in his eyes, it was from years ago.

But it was still him, in a weird sort of way. With a faint smile, Sam pinned the photo carefully above his bed and flicked the book open. There on the front page, written in Dean's deliberately untidy scrawl, were two little words.

_Semper Fi. _

xxx

He never saw Sara again at Stanford, but he knew she came ever three months. Just like he knew when Dean was watching him from across the quad or when the Impala was parked across his street in the middle of the night.

Sam took Sara's advice, lived up to people's expectations and mimicked normality perfectly. It turned out that if you never spoke about your family, no one would ask you about it, assuming the worst. There was some contact, at least for that first year. The odd phone call, postcards from all over the country. Two parcels a year, December and May, with a huge bag of salt, some ammo and a book. Dean had no such thing as a return address, but the first Christmas in Stanford, Sam left Dean's gift on his desk. When it went missing and the room smelt once again of burnt sage, he knew it would get to his brother.

In their rare phone calls, Dean never mentioned hunting or their father or what he was up to. Sam never asked, not because he didn't care but because he knew it would just lead to another argument, and just prayed that Dean wasn't hunting alone. It wasn't until he moved into his new – _first ­_– apartment with Jessica that he got his answer.

Admittedly, the answer came in protective symbols spray-painted on the walls of the apartment, but that was just sort of funny.

"Damn, those are freaky," was all Jess said. "And what's that smell?"

Sam, masquerading as just plain lazy, suggested painting over the symbols. Jess had wanted the apartment to be mainly dark colours anyway.

Spray-paint and sage. Dean and Sara. If the sheer audacity of the painted symbols –some of them were taller than he was- hadn't told him that his brother had been there, the words scrawled by the half-open window (which Jess swore she'd shut the day before) would have.

_Semper Fi. _

_Always faithful. _

And he just wished he could tell his brother that went both ways.

xxx

_And thus ends Lines and Divides. Dean and Sara will return in more stories, I hope. Sammy of course is busy for another few years with normality. Reviews are still loved, guys. _


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